Ever wondered what life is like for those that are deaf in other countries? The Discovering Deaf Worlds project, in which David Justice and CBS’ "Survivor: The Amazon" contestant Christy Smith, who is deaf, gives an inside look at deafness around the world.
President Obama has been welcomed by the Deaf Community with his very own sign name. Typically, a person's name is fingerspelled. However, a Deaf person (not a hearing person) can give a sign name to someone to avoid fingerspelling someone's name over and over. This is more than an act of convenience though. A name sign signifies acceptance into Deaf culture.
You may wonder after watching this video if President Obama will ever come into contact with the Deaf Community since so many people rarely if ever meet a Deaf person. Interestingly enough, Washington DC has one of the largest, if not largest concentrations of Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals. It is the home of Gallaudet University (the world's only university in which all programs and services are specifically designed to accommodate Deaf and hard of hearing students) with it's 2007 enrollment of 1,633 and 1,077 employees (44% of whom are Deaf and hard of hearing). Many students graduate and continue to live and work locally.
Having spent my Interpreting internship in Richmond, VA and DC I was overwhelmed with the richness of the Culture and was able to witness it firsthand. I even was fortunate enough to interpret for a Deaf employee inside the Pentagon, so I am sure President Obama will be aware of his new found name!
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If you are interested in helping out in a study on language acquisition in signing babies, please read the request from researcher Greta Mueller.
Email from Greta Mueller:
Dear mothers,
As dedicated mothers who care about the wellbeing of their children, I would like to ask you to participate in my survey. My name is Greta Mueller and I study psychology at the University of Trier in Germany. I study language development and early communication skills in children. For this reason I am looking for mothers of 8-18 months old children from USA and Canada who are practicing baby signing and willing to complete an online questionnaire about this topic.
It takes about 25-40 minutes to complete the questionnaire. I ensure that I will keep your answers in confidence. Your data serves scientific purposes only and will not be misused.
